Not Exactly Wedding Of The Year
by tobinfic
Summary: Finding a date for her sister's wedding was just one more annoying job to do before the big day. Now it's looming and Jess is dateless. What's a modern girl to do? Why, internet dating, obviously...
1. Chapter 1

When Jess was still in primary school, she'd had a friend called Laura. Laura had been older than Jess – all the kids in Jess' class were older than her, because Jess was 'advanced' and 'special', and had to be moved ahead several years – but Laura was used to younger kids because she had little sisters a bit younger than Jess. Laura had let Jess use her coloured pencils to colour in a map of Europe, and they had bonded over their love of S Club 7 and netball.

Jess used to love it when she was invited to tea at Laura's house. The best days were Sundays, when the entire family used to sit in the living room around the enormous coffee table, laden with doorstop sandwiches, bags of crisps and cakes from a packet made by Mr Kipling, and watch _The Simpsons_ on Sky.

Jess' family didn't do that.

For a start, all meals were eaten in the dining room. No trays on laps like at Laura's house, or crowding around the coffee table. There was no tv or radio, just the sound of her mother's best china clinking delicately, and the glug of water from the Dartmouth crystal jug decanting into glasses. Jess wasn't allowed orange squash at home. She was at Laura's.

Laura's family all talked to each other, noisy and at cross-purposes. They bickered over who got the last French Fancy, refused to eat their crusts unless their father threatened to withhold their pocket money and all laughed when Homer said something stupid on TV. Jess' father always retreated behind the Sunday Times, leaving her mother to address her comments about the McKinleys from the golf club, or the state of the hydrangeas, to a wall of text.

Jess' older brothers, Richard and Christopher, weren't there a lot when she was a child – they were already away at university and only home at holidays. Then joined the navy and the air force respectively, and they were there even less. When they did come home on leave they were large and loud and unfamiliar, and Jess did her best to stay out of their way. Her sister, Anna, was seven years older than her, and had been the baby of the family, and the only girl, for seven years until Jessica arrived. Once Jess became old enough to understand her sister's reasons for being so casually cruel to her, she disliked her right back.

So family meals in the Parker household were always fraught with discreet, quiet, middle- class tension. Jess often thought longingly of Laura's house, with its noise and casual affection and cartoons.

Jess was eventually moved out of Laura's class, and then out of the school altogether as her family found her a placement at a special academy for gifted children. Jess lost touch with Laura and her family, and was left to suffer through years of Sunday afternoon teas alone. When she was allowed to live-in at university, doing her Masters at age eighteen, the first thing she did was to buy a packet of Mr Kipling Viennese Whirls and a Simpsons DVD for her first Sunday afternoon away from home.

She was still expected at her parents' home for afternoon tea every Sunday afternoon now, four thirty pm without fail. She bitterly resented the way it cut into her only guaranteed day off a week, but yet she found it impossible to say no to her parents. Well, to her mother. She got the feeling that she could say whatever she liked to her father's newspaper as he'd be too busy reading the cricket scores to hear her anyway.

Early in his marriage Robert Parker had cultivated a very peculiar and specific form of deafness, and it had been the reason the marriage had lasted as long as it had. Jess had no doubts that her father loved her very dearly, as did her mother, but his job in the civil service often meant long hours and Jess didn't really see very much of him growing up, apart from at meals. She had been enrolled on a myriad of after-school activities, and always had homework to do anyway.

In her head, when she pictured her father, Jess saw a smiling man sitting at a dinner table Sometimes, it was hard to separate man from table.

Now as an adult, every Sunday she found herself sitting at the same mahogany table in the dining room, sipping tea from delicate china, prodding a limp slice of quiche with her fork, and listening to her mother and her sister casually assassinate the characters of mutual friends and acquaintances. Eventually her mother would realise that Jess had not taken part in the conversation, and would start to interrogate her about her job and love life. As Jess couldn't say much about her job, and had no love life to speak of, it resulted in a lot of disapproving lectures about the importance of social networking from her mother, and condescending looks from Anna, who usually dragged her revolting boyfriend Jasper with her.

Jess generally got through the whole experience by gritting her teeth and imagining Anna being trampled by a brachiosaur. It would take a dinosaur that large to squash her ego.

The Sunday that Anna announced her engagement was the worst one yet. Her mother immediately burst into delicate, lady-like tears and announced how happy she was. Her father emerged from behind his newspaper long enough to peck Anna on the cheek and shake the odious Jasper's hand, then he retreated again. Jess offered her congratulations too, and dutifully admired Anna's ring.

It was everything Jess couldn't stand – large, flashy and ostentatious. The diamond was huge, standing proud from the ring, and announced that the owner had access to serious cash. Jasper kept staring at Jess, his eyes darting to the neckline of her top and then to the hemline of her skirt before he'd lick his lips.

Urgh. Jasper was an a-grade creep, and Jess had no idea what Anna saw in him other than his wallet. He was the very worst of those that worked in the City – all expense accounts and braying public school voices and a sense of smug superiority you wanted to wipe off their faces with the nearest blunt instrument. Money was Jasper's world, and he always had the latest and best of everything. All this would have been tolerable for Jess; after all, she wasn't the one that had to go out with him, thank God. But at the last family party on New Year's Eve he'd got drunk and tried to stick his hand up her skirt when she was in the kitchen, checking her email on her phone. She fought him off by sticking the spiked heel of her shoe into the hand-stitched Italian leather of his.

Something had told her that Anna wouldn't have believed her even if she had told her the truth of what happened, which just made Jess more angry and more amenable to hating Jasper's stupid, chinless face. Perhaps hacking his bank details and sending a sizable donation to a charity set up to support abused women was a little much, but it made Jess feel a hell of a lot better the situation.

"And, of course, bridesmaids! How many will you have?"

Her mother's delighted voice brought her back to the real world.

"I haven't really thought about it," Anna said, with the studied casualness of a woman who has her hypothetical wedding already planned down to the choice of font in the order of service. "But Jasper has a niece, and Richard's two are just adorable."

"How about Christopher's girl?" Jess' mother asked, keen to see all her grandchildren dolled up for the big day.

Anna's lips pursed into a moue of distaste. "She's a little young," she said eventually.

"Young!" Jess couldn't help but say. "Mum, she's five years old. She's far too young to be a bridesmaid."

"A flower girl then," her mother said decisively. "And anyway, it'll be your job to look after her."

"My job?" Jess asked, confused. "How so?"

"Because you'll be the senior bridesmaid, of course," her mother told her. "Don't be silly, Jessica."

"I'm not sure…" Jess began, but Anna interrupted her.

"Actually Jess will be one of three adult bridesmaids. I couldn't possibly be married without Tipsy and Lolly being there."

Oh God, Lolly (real name, Lauren) and Tipsy (real name, unfortunately) were the only two women on earth possibly more annoying that her sister. While Anna owned and ran a successful furniture importing and interior design business, Lolly and Tipsy, her friends since school, were predatory man-hunters, constantly on the look-out for the poor soul that would provide their financial future. By day they were temps for an office staff service that provided glossy, well-spoken women to sit on a company's front desk. By night they systematically trawled the nightclubs of upper-class London for their prey.

When Prince William had announced his engagement to Kate Middleton, they wore black for a week and threw darts at her picture before turning their sights onto Harry instead. He'd once spilled a drink on Lolly in Mahiki; it was the highlight of her life.

"So that's settled," her mother said firmly. "Jess, Lolly and Tipsy as the adult bridesmaids, Jasper's niece and Richard's two as the younger bridesmaids, and Christopher's as the flower girl."

"It is symmetrical," Anna mused.

"No it's not," Jess said to nobody in particular.

As usual, nobody listened.

Whenever Jess went to Sunday tea after that, the wedding was the only topic of conversation. Jasper, having done his bit by buying the ring and promising to turn up to the church, no longer accompanied his fiancée.

He wasn't missed by anyone.

Jess perfected a look of polite interest, and duly browsed the incredible number of bridal magazines that Anna always surrounded herself in. As neither her mother nor her sister asked her opinion about the venue, the flowers, the readings, the caterers or the dress, she needn't have bothered.

As the months went on, Anna's feeling of security in planning her wedding shrivelled up and dried out. She became the victim of the latest fad emblazoned over the magazines, and changed her mind about four times a week about every detail.

One Sunday about six weeks before the chosen date was spent writing out invitations; _Modern Bride_ had run a piece about the importance of the personal touch at weddings, and in a panic Anna had cancelled the order with the printer and re-ordered the invitation with most of the text missing.

There were simply too many to do that Sunday; Jess took her share home, brought them into work with her, scanned a copy of her handwriting into the computer and then printed hers out. They looked handwritten, and only took her twenty minutes. A quick browse of Tipsy and Lolly's Facebook pages showed that they weren't quite so enamoured with their share of the work.

That had cheered Jess up quite well.

The choosing of the bridesmaids dresses were a major bone of contention between Jess and her sister. She simply didn't have time to go to every bridal shop in London and the home counties to try on dresses; thankfully, her cover story as being employed by the Home Office (sort of true, after all) got her out of most of her sister's flares of temper. Jess got to as many as she could fit into her lunch breaks, which was where problems started and tempers frayed.

Tipsy, Lolly and Jess all had very different ideas about what a suitable dress looked like. Tipsy sulked for days when Anna said she couldn't wear anything that hit above the knee. Jess wouldn't have minded a shorter dress, but she was wise enough to keep her mouth shut and not attract her sister's wrath. Lolly had the deep brown skin tone that wore strong colours perfectly and did not see why all three bridesmaids couldn't wear the same striking cerise. Anna refused to be followed down the aisle by three refugees from _My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding_, which led to a three day argument on Twitter before Lolly and Anna made up again.

It also didn't help that while Anna, Lolly and Tipsy were all tall, Jess…wasn't. Some of the styles of dresses they picked out suited the long, elegant ladies perfectly, but made Jess feel like she was a little girl dressing up in an adult's clothes.

It wasn't until Anna had the spectacular wedding administration ('wedmin', in the trade) related breakdown in the florist's shop and tried to attack the woman with a bunch of callia lilies that the matter of the bridesmaids' dresses was solved at all. Finding a new florist meant that the design and make-up of the floral decorations changed. He suggested that instead of sticking rigidly to one or two colours, Anna consider a palette of harmonious colours for her flowers. This led her to the idea of having different colour dresses for her bridesmaids, to match the choices in her bouquet.

Jess would have kissed the darling man, if she had any thought that the idea might be welcomed by him. Given the surprising number of male shop assistants in very tight t-shirts he employed, she doubted it.

One Thursday, between running a full systems diagnostic on the ARC's newly-repaired wiring and co-ordinating the clean-up of a herd of hungry herbivores that ran rampant through an indignant fruit farmer's orchard, Jess managed to find a fabric shop that contained enough pale violet silk to make Jess' dress. The actual dress pattern was a compromise needed to suit all three adult bridesmaids; it actually made them all look equally bad, but Anna was happy with it. After all, the role of the bridesmaid in the modern wedding was to show how beautiful the bride was by comparison.

So, with the material delivered to the dressmaker, the invitations sorted, the cake finally selected and ordered, the flowers now taken care of, the younger bridesmaids dresses picked from Marks and Spencers and the venue eventually decided on and booked, Jess breathed a sigh of relief. Her part in organising the wedding was done. All she had to do now was make at least one fitting for her dress, turn up on the day and try not to breathe too loud a sigh of relief when the whole business was over and done with.

Never had she wanted to retreat behind a copy of The Times more.

Of course, life wasn't that simple. A mere three weeks before the wedding, at Sunday afternoon tea, Anna demanded to know the name of Jess' guest to the wedding so she could get a name-plate written for the reception afterwards.

"Guest?" Jess asked, uncertainly. "You never said anything about a guest."

"Of course you're bringing a guest," Anna said, eyeing the crumpets oozing with butter with longing, before spearing a raw carrot stick instead. "Who else will you sit next to?"

"Whoever's in the chair next to me," Jess said, nonplussed. "Anna, I don't need to bring a guest to your wedding."

"Yes you do," snapped Anna, her knuckles whitening around the fork she was holding. "Because Lolly and Tipsy are both bringing guests and if you don't bring one the whole table will be lopsided and that would be _bad_."

"Alright," Jess said carefully, catching her mother's worried look. "I can ask Abby to come with me; she's getting married, maybe she'll want to have a look at your lovely flowers to get some ideas…"

"_It has to be a man!_" shrieked Anna. "Everyone will think you're a lesbian!"

"And what's wrong with that?" Jess said, purposefully provoking her sister. She couldn't help it. That was how they always had been. "Plenty of lesbians in the world. Some of them even go to weddings."

"A man," Anna snarled. "So you match Lolly and Tipsy."

"Jessica," her mother said purposefully. "Stop antagonising your sister and tell her that you will bring a suitable male companion to the wedding."

She could hear the unspoken desperation in her mother's voice; running the business and planning the wedding was driving Anna mad. She was usually about three minutes away from a screaming fit or crying jag, and trying to stick to a non-carb diet on top of that was making her even more moody. Really, the best thing for everybody would be for Jasper to stick a potato in her mouth and elope with her to Gretna Green, but he was conspicuously absent from all wedding-related matters.

Jess sighed. It really wasn't worth it.

"I will find someone to bring to the wedding," she said. "A man," she clarified.

"He'll probably be some nerdy little computer geek," Anna sniffed, but let the matter rest.

"Actually," Jess wanted to say. "He's the man that makes David Gandy feel fat and ugly." But she didn't say it, because right then she wasn't sure that she could even find a nerdy computer geek in her little black book.

She pondered the problem the next day as she sat at the ADD and observed her readouts.

Jess didn't really date. Not much, anyway, and not often, and that was before she had started work at the ARC. Since then, her social life had pretty much ground to a halt; drinks a few times with some college friends, the odd film or a barbeque and that was it. Not much chance of meeting the man of your dreams when you spend most of your time staring a bank of screens half a mile underground.

Her few male friends from her university days were all married or in relationships. No help there. She hated the idea of going out on the pull, like Tipsy and Lolly. She just didn't have the confidence for that, or the time. In fact, the boy that delivered pizza to her flat too many times a week was probably the man she saw more often than anyone, other than her work colleagues.

As soon as she thought that, she let her eyes slide across the room to where Becker was standing with Matt, each both trying to out-alpha the other. She looked back at her screen again immediately, hoping they hadn't noticed. Not that she really cared if Matt saw that she was looking at him. No.

If David Gandy did have a rival, Jess thought, her cheeks flushing at the image, it was probably Becker. He had model good looks and a physique toned not by hours in a gym but by actually running around and being heroic. Well, running around and being heroic _and_ hours in the gym, as the security camera feed showed.

Jess particularly liked it when he did press ups.

Jess spared a moment to think about the look of the face of Anna when Jess showed up with Becker on her arm, his sharply-cut grey morning suit showing his broad shoulders to perfection. There would be Jess with this specimen of male beauty, and there would be Anna, forever stuck with Jasper, the walking advert for retroactive contraception.

Oh, it would be _bliss_.

A small beeping noise from one of her screens brought her back to reality. She wouldn't be breezing into the wedding reception with Becker. He was a colleague, possibly verging on friend status, and while he would gladly put himself in front of future predators to save her life, he probably wouldn't be willing to endure hours of tedium at her sister's wedding just to make her appear like less of a loser by pretending to be her boyfriend.

Jess dealt with the alert that caused the beeping and sighed. There had to be something she could do. She needed an idea. She needed a plan. She needed…lunch.

She sat at the back of the canteen with her sandwiches and KitKat (peanut butter chunky, the vending machine gods had been kind today) and opened her little netbook computer. The idea had hit her while she was waiting at the drinks dispenser for her coffee. Whenever she had a problem, she turned to technology to solve it. No time to shop? eBay! Tired and didn't feel like cooking? Order a pizza online! Sink blocked up? Check for a plumber on Yell!

Why did finding a date for the wedding need to be any more complicated than that?

A few minutes research saw her find several internet dating sites that looked like they would do the job. She was just narrowing the choice down when Abby and Emily turned up, holding their trays.

"Fancy some company?" Abby asked, sitting down at the table anyway. "It seems like I never see you now."

Since Abby and Connor had found a flat of their own, Jess had found her own home a little too quiet. She missed having them around, even if Connor did prefer to wander around the flat in his boxer shorts and not much else.

"Sure," Jess said, pushing aside her computer. "This wedding business has calmed down a bit now, so you might actually catch a glimpse of me at lunchtimes."

"You found the right material?" Emily asked, looking at her meal with curiosity. Today the canteen workers were trying their hand at Chinese cuisine, and she was having trouble with the concept.

"Oh yes, and had my first fitting. It's going to make me look awful, but at least I'll look awful in a colour that flatters my skin tone."

"So why the annoyed face?" Abby asked, tucking into her own meal.

"Because my sister has decided that I have to bring a date to the wedding, and I haven't got anybody to ask," Jess said gloomily.

"You must have somebody," Abby said encouragingly, but Jess shook her head.

"I really don't," Jess sighed. "If this was any other occasion, I wouldn't care. But Anna's getting incredibly stressed out by the whole thing, and if her bridesmaids don't match then she's likely to self destruct."

"You could ask Becker," Abby said with a smile. "He'd go very nicely with your dress."

"He wouldn't want to go with me," Jess said nervously. "I can't ask him."

"I'm sure he would," Emily started, but Jess shook her head firmly.

"If I ask him, and he says yes, everybody there would assume he was my boyfriend. My mother would start asking embarrassing personal questions. I'd die of shame. So no, I'm not asking Becker to go to the wedding with me."

Abby started looking around the room.

"There's got to be some fit men here you could ask," she said thoughtfully. "How about Marcus the lab tech?"

"Married," Jess told her, her eidetic memory bringing up Marcus' personal file in her head. "They've just had a baby."

"Oh, I know, !"

He was the new doctor in the medical bay, and had been the focus of a lot of female attention.

"I'm not interested in being another one in a line of women," Jess sniffed.

There were other valid reasons why none of the other men either Emily or Abby suggested were viable candidates for the role of Jess' Boyfriend; already taken, gay or eaten by velociraptors pretty much excluded anybody she could consider starting a relationship with.

"I'd loan you Connor for the day, but the wedding is the same day as Collectormania and he's already getting excited about meeting Jeri Ryan," Abby commiserated.

"I couldn't stand between Connor and Seven of Nine," Jess told her, smiling. "I'd never forgive myself. Besides, I think I have a plan."

"What's that?" Emily said, accepting the fact that she'd never understand most of what her friends talked about.

"Internet dating," Jess said, sinking her teeth into her KitKat and sighing as the sugar started singing in her bloodstream.

"Seriously?" Abby asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Why not?" Jess shrugged. "I use it for everything else, why not this?"

They took some time explaining the concept of internet dating to Emily, but once she understood the process she was in favour of it.

"It makes sense to correspond with someone before you meet them in person," she said thoughtfully. "It will give you time to appreciate their character. Of course, in my time this was all handled very differently. Unmarried women were chaperoned, and potential suitors had to be approved by their parents or guardians."

Jess snorted. "I dread to think what sort of person my parents would find suitable," she said, balling up the wrapper of her chocolate bar. "Probably another Jasper."

"We could do it though," Abby said suddenly. "We could help you pick out a prospective boyfriend."

"I'm not sure…" Jess began, but Emily interrupted her.

"I helped my cousin through her Season," she said gravely. "It was with my assistance that she was able to secure a love match, even though her parents were hoping for another gentleman to marry her. Let me help you, Jess."

"You just give us time to write your personal profile," Abby said, grabbing the netbook. "We'll upload it onto a few sites and filter out anyone we don't think is right for you."

"You don't have to…" Jess began, but was waved off by an intent Abby and Emily, who were busy with the websites Jess had selected.

Sighing dubiously, Jess went back to work and left them to it. She hoped she was making the right decision.

Every time she asked either Abby or Emily about the plan in the next three days, she was politely rebuffed. All she was told was that profiles had been submitted to several sites, and they were working their way through the responses.

Jess was getting impatient. This was her idea, and she still wasn't completely confident about Abby and Emily's decision making abilities in this area. Then again, she reminded herself, Abby was engaged and Emily and Matt were…well, it was hard to put a name to it, but they had an understanding.

Still, waiting was hard.

On the fourth day they found her in the canteen and waved a large stack of paper at her excitedly. Jess eagerly pushed her fajita to one side, today's Mexican Food Day experiment not really succeeding with anybody other than the soldiers, who would eat anything put in front of them.

"Here is the first batch of successful applicants," Abby said proudly, laying them out in front of her. "I've marked the ones I like with a star."

"And the ones I like have got a little heart by them," Emily added, nudging some of her choices closer to Jess.

Jess scanned the profiles of the men that had been selected, and tried not to laugh. It was clear what had happened; both women had selected men that had qualities that they found attractive.

"I'm sorry Abby," Jess said, pushing the papers back towards her. "But I don't think these men are for me."

"What's wrong with them?" Abby demanded.

Jess pulled a face. "They're all very…typical," she said carefully. "Short, working in IT, really into their science fiction…"

"And?" Abby said, confused.

"Abby, they're all just like Connor," Jess explained.

"No they're not!" Abby exclaimed, snatching back the papers and reading them again. Her face fell as she took in the details on the profiles properly.  
>"Yes, they are," she groaned. "Sorry, Jess."<p>

"That's okay," Jess said, smiling. "Connor's lovely, Abby. I can see why you think all women should have someone like him."

"Yeah, but he's not your type," Abby said, folding up her profiles. "I could tell that when we were living together. Whenever he'd wander around in his boxers, you'd just wince and pass him his dressing gown. I used to do the same with Jack."

"None of the suitors I selected are like Connor," Emily said, sounding a little smug. "Or Matt," she added, before either Jess or Abby could tease her.

Jess picked up Emily's chosen pages and scanned through them. She was right; none of the profiles reminded her of any of her colleagues. In fact, the profiles didn't even match each other. It wasn't until Jess focused on the income section that she saw the correlation.

"Emily, did you pick all these men because they make a lot of money?" she asked in disbelief.

"In my time gentlemen did not work," Emily explained. "Only the middle class. But all that is different now. Everyone seems to work. So I selected those in the highest income bracket as they would be able to provide you with the most comfortable lifestyle."

Jess and Abby sighed. While Emily had been adapting to modern life, it seemed that some attitudes were hard to break.

"I can provide myself with a comfortable lifestyle," Jess said kindly. "I don't need to pick a partner who makes a lot of money."

"Yes, but isn't it easier to be happy if you have a lot of money?" Emily asked her, raising an eyebrow.

"Not to be rude, Emily, but it didn't seem to make you happy with your husband," Jess pointed out.

"Ah, but I never got a say in choosing him," Emily said triumphantly. "You do. You can find a nice man and fall hopelessly in love, and have a lot of money at the same time"

"That is either incredibly romantic or incredibly mercenary of you," Abby said eventually. "I honestly don't know which."

Jess pushed the profiles back towards Emily.

"I don't think so," she told her. "I want to date the man, not his bank balance."

"We'll try again," Abby told her. "We'll have more for you by tomorrow."

Abby and Emily left, throwing the useless profiles into the recycling bin by the door on the way out. Jess gave up on her fajita, scraped it into the food waste bin and left a few minutes later.

Two minutes after that, Becker got up from his table just out of the women's' line of sight, rescued the abandoned pages from the recycling bin and headed to his office with a thoughtful look on his face.

A large pile of papers landed on Abby's workspace, startling her. She whirled around, the paring knife she was using to cut up food for Rex already up in a defensive position, when she realised that she was in no danger from her intruder.

"What are those?" Becker asked tightly. "And what do they have to do with Jess?"

"How did you get these?" Abby shot back, rifling through the papers. "They're private!"

"They were found in one of the recycling bins," Becker said carefully, making no mention of the fact that he was the one who had deliberately fished them out. "Anyone could have got hold of them."

"They're exactly what they look like," Abby said, going back to cutting up fruit for Rex. "Internet dating profiles."

"Oh please," Becker said scornfully. "Who uses those things, anyway?"

Abby turned around, the knife in her hand waving in a distinctly non-friendly manner.

"Lots of people do. _Jess_ does, so you can keep your opinions to yourself, do you understand me?"

"Why does Jess need internet dating for anyway?" Becker asked crossly, trying to pretend that the thought of Abby Maitland with a paring knife wasn't something that made him feel slightly uneasy. "It's not as if she'd have trouble finding someone to go out with her."

Against his will, he found his gaze slipping to the large glass window of Abby's lab that looked out onto the hub, where Jess was sitting at the ADD, typing away at the controls. He followed the pale length of her leg up from her ridiculous red shoes to the hem of the navy blue skirt she was wearing, and frowned when one of his men spent far too much time talking to her while returning his black box.

"You'd think that would be the case," Abby said, staring at him strangely, "but she never gets the chance to meet anybody. And anyway, there's a time issue."  
>Becker returned his attention to Abby and frowned.<p>

"What time issue?" he asked.

"Jess' vile sister is getting married in three weeks time, and has demanded that Jess bring a date to the wedding. Despite the fact that her sister has been a psychotic bitch in the run up to the grand event and has been driving Jess mad, she's given in to her."

Abby started chopping the fruit on the table in front of her with slightly more force than was necessary.

"Honestly Becker, Jess has been running herself ragged in the last few months trying to keep up with her sister's demands. And now, with only a few weeks to go, she drops this bombshell on Jess. So, Jess being Jess, turned to the internet to solve her problems. Hence, internet dating."

"I see," Becker said, glancing through the window again to Jess and the smitten soldier. "Well, just be careful where you put those in future. Someone could find them and…"

He stopped before he could say "…and be mean to her," but it was heavily implied.

"I will," Abby promised.

Becker recognised an opportunity for a tactical withdrawal into the neutral territory of the corridor and took it.

Abby put down her knife and watched him run away before something as horrific as an emotion showed on his soldierly façade. Then she smiled, picked up her mobile and dialled Emily.

"I've got the answer to Jess' problem," she said gleefully. "And it's been under our noses the entire time."


	2. Chapter 2

Becker watched Jess closely over the next few days. Well, that was a lie, he always watched her closely. But now he watched her a little bit more than before. He found reasons to work in the hub more often than he usually did, and timed his coffee and lunch breaks to match hers. That way he was able to spot when Emily and Abby produced their next bunch of potential dates for Jess to go through.

He studied his tablet computer intently, trying not to make it obvious just how badly he was eavesdropping on a private conversation.

"These are definitely better than the last lot we picked," Abby said proudly. "None of them are rich and none of them sound like Connor."

"They're certainly…diverse," Jess said diplomatically. She shuffled through the papers again. "Were these were the only replies?" she asked hopefully.

"The only ones we thought were suitable," Emily assured her, making Jess frown.

"Right," she said flatly. "Well, I'd better pick one of these then."

She looked through her choices again.

"This one," she said eventually.

"Good choice!" Abby said brightly. "He's tall, he's got a PhD, he's a lecturer at Kings. Perfect for you! So brainy!"

"Yeah," Jess agreed, cheering up a little. It would be nice to talk to somebody at the reception about something other than the money market or interior décor, which seemed to be the main topic of conversation for all of Jasper and Anna's friends.

"I'll email him," Jess decided, "and ask him out for a drink."

"Good idea," Abby said, and Emily nodded.

_Bad idea_, Becker thought, gripping his tablet computer so tightly that his knuckles whitened. Jess could be meeting anybody, some rapist or serial killer. He couldn't believe that she would be stupid enough to meet some evil lunatic that she picked from a list on the internet.

He listened as the women discussed which bar Jess should meet him at and what she should wear, his mind full of the ways Jess could put herself into danger. It was no good, he decided abruptly. She needed help. Nobody should have to engage with a possible hostile without backup.

He sent Abby an email, requesting her presence for a security briefing later that afternoon. If Jess was going to go out there, she wasn't going to have to do it alone.

Abby did her utmost to keep a straight face as Becker interrogated her about Jess' plan to date a stranger she met on the internet.

"Be fair Becker," Abby pointed out as Becker started rattling off horrifying statistics about sexual assault rates in London in the last five years. "This guy is putting his name and face on an internet dating website. He's hardly likely to attack Jess if he's made his name public, along with what he looks like!"

Becker's eyes narrowed.

"That's _exactly_ how these people want you to think," he said menacingly. "He could put something in Jess' drink, Abby. He could follow her home."

Abby tried not to laugh at the sight of him pacing frantically in the small room. This was so much fun. She had known that Jess had a crush on Becker – hell, the whole ARC knew that Jess had a crush on Becker – but she hadn't known that the feelings were mutual.

"You're very sweet to worry, Becker," Abby said consolingly. "But Jess will be fine."

"She will be fine," he repeated grimly. "Because you're going to be there to keep watch."

"No I'm not!" Abby said indignantly.

"She needs someone there to look out for her, Abby," Becker snapped.

"She doesn't, Becker," Abby snapped back. "Jess is a grown woman, and a sensible one at that. She's meeting this guy in a public bar on Greendale Street at half past seven. She'll be surrounded by people."

She left then, before she let her face slip and gave the game away. He was still pacing furiously when she left, and she knew exactly what he'd do. He hadn't asked Emily to chaperone the date because she was still confused by aspects of modern life; she'd refuse, anyway, because Abby had already sent her a text informing her of Becker's imminent nervous breakdown over Jess' dating. There would be no other option for him; he'd have to do it himself.

Maybe that would get his uptight arse into gear and make him offer to take Jess to the wedding himself.

There was only one bar on Greendale Street, a small road running between two much larger, busier streets. Becker hated it immediately; it was too small, badly lit and had too many lines of sight blocked by useless bits of furniture. Of course, if he was there on a date, he allowed, it would be quite nice, but as the operation zone for a mission like this, it was next to useless.

He settled into a seat at the back, burying himself behind a newspaper, feeling every inch like an inept spy of the Clouseau school. He was early, because he knew that Jess would be early; her hyper-organised mind would have had her prepared for her date about an hour before she was due to leave her flat, and she'd get impatient.

And there she was, pushing the door open now. She looked beautiful, and very different from at work. She always dressed well; Becker knew next to nothing about women's fashions, but he could tell that there was a difference between the way that Jess dressed and the way that other women in the ARC did. But tonight she looked…different. Softer. She wore a simple pink dress with a little white cardigan over the top, the hemline ending a few inches shorter than he was happy with. She carried a small white handbag and she was wearing pink shoes. Where the dress was simple and elegant, the shoes were an extravaganza of ridiculousness, all high wedged heel and pink flowers and sparkling stones.

She'd never be able to outrun any possible enemy hostiles in those, Becker thought, but then she wouldn't have to, because every man in a two-mile radius would be volunteering to throw themselves bodily between her and any danger.

They were dangerous shoes.

She looked around the bar, clearly seeking out her date. Becker dived back behind his newspaper, counted to ten, and peeked around the side. She was at the bar now, smiling at the bartender who was pulling all sorts of bottles around to make Jess the drink she wanted. He presented the pink liquid to her with a flourish, and she smiled and paid for it before settling down at a table with her back to Becker to wait for her date.

It was her hair, he realised, staring at her back. She always wore her hair up for work, but now she was wearing her hair down. It fell past her shoulders in a smooth, rich cascade and he found himself wondering if it was as soft to touch as it looked, if she had to go to the ridiculous levels of control of it that he had to with his, what she looked like first thing in the morning with it ruffled by sleep…

Becker shook himself, and tried to remain focused on the mission.

Jess knew that this date wasn't going to go well when he arrived, ignored her polite handshake and kissed her full on the lips instead.

Call her old fashioned, but you just didn't do that with complete strangers!

The whole date lasted two hours, during which she found out everything about his field of study, publication history, professional ambitions and projected career path. At first Jess tried to interject information about herself into the monologue, but as all he did was smile, nod and then turn the conversation back to himself, she quickly realised that there wasn't much point.

God, he was boring.

At about half past nine, he smiled at her boobs and announced that he was hungry, and would she like to join him for dinner?

She'd smiled, declined, dodged his farewell kiss and left. She found a cab at the end of the road and headed home, wondering the entire time if pleasing her sister was worth this waste of her time.

Becker followed her out of the bar, making sure to stay at least ten feet behind her. He watched her get into a cab, took a note of the license plate and watched it go in the general direction of Jess' flat. It was a good decision on her part; her date was an obvious bell-end. Even though the noise of the bar had made it difficult to hear specifics of their conversation, it was clear that he had done most of the talking.

Who wouldn't want to hear Jess talk? She was clever and funny and never quite said what you thought she would. She was interesting, and that bloke was a fool.

Becker was strangely grateful for the other man's stupidity, and didn't bother to look too closely at his own reasons for feeling that way.

"Well, how'd it go?" Abby demanded the next morning, just as Jess was logging onto the ADD. "Give us all the gory details!"

"There are no details," Jess said, rolling her eyes. "We met, he talked at me for two hours, and I came home. Alone," she added, before Abby could ask. "It wasn't the most successful date in the world."

"Never mind," Emily said cheerfully. "Plenty more to choose from. Try this one next."

She handed Jess a piece of paper with another profile on it.

"Are you sure?" Jess asked doubtfully, reading it. "I've never gone out with a musician before."

"He's completely unlike the last one," Emily told her confidently. "And as that was a bit of a disaster, why not try him? What's to lose?"

Jess stared at the picture accompanying the profile. He was quite attractive, she supposed. And if you squinted, looked a bit like Becker.

"Alright," she said at last. "If you say so. Set me up."

"I'll have Abby email him immediately!" Emily said, excited.

"You'll have Abby teach you how to email him," Abby grumbled, following her back into the lab area. "No more servants, Lady Emily."

Becker watched the two women walk past him, talking about the new choice of potential boyfriend for Jess. He thought about what he was about to do for about thirty seconds before deciding that it fell, broadly speaking, anyway, under the heading of ARC security. He headed back to his office, accessed the security camera feed from Abby's lab, and turned up the volume on the sound.

It wasn't spying, he told himself. It was for the greater good.

The musician had been busy that night with a gig, but he was free the night after, so Jess found herself once more pulling on a nice dress and heading out into the unknown.

This time she found herself in a vegan coffeehouse that she never knew existed. The waitress that brought her coffee was very nice, and the walls were covered in menu boards that were brightly decorated, if a little off-putting to a carnivore like her. She admired vegetarians for their principles, but couldn't resist the lure of a juicy bacon sandwich.

He was late, which made Jess nervous. She kept checking her watch, and smoothing her pale mint dress over her lap. She was in shades of green today, with everything from her high-heeled shoes to clips in her hair coordinating beautifully. When he eventually showed up, he was wearing a t-shirt for a band Jess had never heard of, old jeans with a few suspicious stains on them and trainers that must have been as old as she was.

It was not an auspicious start to the evening.

Becker stared in disbelief at the grotty tramp that came wandering into the café and sat down at Jess' table. Surely that wasn't her date? Didn't he have any standards? Alright, this was a casual place, but didn't he own a shirt? Or an iron, for that matter?

He was sitting in a booth at the back of the café, trying to stay out of sight. Jess looked like a spearmint imperial, all green and fresh and mouth-watering. They had always been his favourite sweet. His grandmother had always sent him back to school with a big tub of them, and they reminded him of her. She'd always had a few in her pocket when he came to visit, and still did.

Again, he was too far away to hear exactly what was said. But he could see tension in Jess' smile, and her body language was shouting about annoyance and distrust of the person sitting opposite her. Becker's fingers flexed, reaching for an EMD that just wasn't there. He settled for picking apart his vegan muffin instead, ever watchful of the beautiful brunette in the table by the window.

"Don't ask," Jess said briskly as Abby and Emily caught up with her at the coffee machine the next day. "It was terrible."

"Oh no," Emily said, faking sincerity badly. "He seemed so nice, too."

"Nice!" spat Jess, stalking back to the ADD. "The first thing he did after saying hello was lecture me about the leather of my shoes!"

"He didn't," Abby said, nudging Emily with her elbow.

"He bloody did!" Jess snarled. "It's not like they kill the cows just to make shoes out of them, you know, there are other uses."

"He shouldn't have attacked your shoes," vegetarian Abby said calmly, avoiding the issue.

"And it got worse," Jess said, pressing buttons with an unprecedented viciousness. "He didn't shut up about how a vegan diet made him feel at one with nature and the world around him, then went on to tell me his high score on Angry Birds!"

Emily looked to Abby in confusion.

"I asked him how at one with nature he could be when he found pleasure in watching birds slam into the side of wooden blocks and stone slabs, and then he got angry with me!"

"So, not going with you to your sister's wedding then," Abby commiserated.

"I stopped off at Burger King on the way home, and had a cheeseburger with extra bacon," Jess confided. "And I loved every bite of it, too."

"Back to the drawing board," Abby said. "Don't worry. Third time's the charm."

"I am seriously losing confidence in this whole internet dating business," Jess sighed, turning around and getting back to work.

Emily stole a look at Abby, and grinned conspiratorially.

"She should be," Abby said quietly to Emily as they walked towards the lift. "We've been weeding out the good guys and feeding her the berks."

"Has Becker really been watching over her?" Emily asked, not quite believing it.

"I gave him the address of the first bar, and he must have followed her car to the second place because my friend Georgia who works there said a handsome guy dressed in black sat in the back of the café and didn't do anything but smash up a muffin for the entire time Jess was there," Abby said triumphantly.

"He could just be acting as a friend," Emily warned her.

"No, friends would say outright, "Do you want me to come with you?"", Abby said dismissively. "Only repressed romantics like Becker think that stalking the girl they fancy when they're on dates with other men is acceptable behaviour."

"How many more dates do you think we need to send Jess on before Becker loses his temper and asks to go with her himself?" Emily asked.

"That depends on who we send Jess out on a date with," Abby said thoughtfully. "Any new responses to the profile?"

In the next fortnight, Jess went on five more disastrous dates. Each time she hoped for the best, and each time she ended up going home disappointed and miserable. It was as if the universe was telling her that she was destined to end up alone. And these were the guys that made it past Abby and Emily's stringent check list! Jess shuddered to think about the sort of people that they filtered out.

And if all of this wasn't enough, Becker was acting weirdly too. He was always hovering around her at work, and although in one respect it was like a dream come true to be on the receiving end of so much attention from him, it was starting to get a bit creepy now. She could have sworn that she had seen him while she was on her last two dates, but when she had turned around and looked again, he was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps it wasn't Becker, maybe it was her. Perhaps lunacy ran in her family, like long second toes and hay fever. Anna was now at absolute breaking point; thinner than she had ever been, she looked absolutely awful. No amount of manicures and facials could hide her gaunt cheeks and dull, lifeless skin. Jasper was of no use whatsoever in getting the wedmin sorted out, and seemed more and more distant every time Jess saw him. Of course, Jess' inability to find a date for the wedding provided Anna with an excuse to take her stress and irritability out on Jess.

The wedding was the coming Saturday; the Sunday before, all-out war between the two sisters broke out over the Denbigh china tea service.

"You're doing it on purpose," Anna hissed. "You're trying to ruin my wedding!"

"I'm doing no such thing," Jess snapped back. "You're doing that by being such a bitch to everyone."

Normally the use of profanity at the dining table would have got her a sound telling off from her mother, and a vague, "Now, then," from behind her father's newspaper. On this day, nobody said anything.

"You don't understand the _pressure_ I'm under," Anna growled, hanging onto a teaspoon until it looked like it might bend. "It's not easy trying to run a business and plan a wedding practically single-handed."

"I know it's not," Jess said through gritted teeth, choosing to ignore the fact that both she and her mother had spent a lot of time helping Anna with the organisational details. "But you didn't have to do this alone. It's Jasper's wedding too, he could be taking some of the weight off your shoulders, but no, when there's work to be done he's nowhere to be found."

"He works very hard," Anna said defensively.

"So do you," Jess pointed out. "And yet you're the one doing all the work. Anyone would think that he didn't want to get married!"

Silence fell in the dining room. Jess looked at her sister in alarm.

"Anna," she said quietly. "Is Jasper…does he…"

"Everything's _fine_ with Jasper!" shouted Anna. "Worry about your own sodding love life, will you? At least I'm _getting_ married. You can't even find someone willing to sit next to you for a few hours at the reception!"

Jess set down her tea cup with a decided _click_.

"I have my dress," she told her mother quietly. "I'll drive down to the abbey on the morning of the wedding and get changed with you all there. I'll see you then."

She duly kissed her parents goodbye, said a pointed nothing to her sister and managed to drive her car ten metres down the road before she burst into angry, hot tears.

She wasn't feeling any better when she got into work the next morning, just sick of the whole bloody wedding, which was still five days away. When Abby and Emily came bounding over with their latest stack of profiles, she actually snapped at them and told them to get lost. She turned her chair around and furiously flicked switches for a few seconds before she lost control completely.

She hurried from room, swiping at her cheeks to keep the tears from being too obvious. She needed a place to hole up and cry. Then when she was done, she'd apologise to Abby and Emily, who were only trying to help and email her sister, telling her that there would be no extra guest at the wedding. But first, she had to cry.

"What the bloody hell did you do?" Becker hissed, taking Abby and Emily by their arms and walking them out towards the lift and away from nosy spectators.

"It's gone too far, Abby," Emily said, a look of concern on her face.

"What has gone too far?" Becker asked intently.

"We didn't mean for this to happen," Abby said, yanking her arm free of his grip. "We never wanted to make Jess upset."

"What did you do?" Becker demanded. "Is this about the internet dating?"

"We purposefully selected men we knew that Jess wouldn't get on with," Emily said quickly. "In order to make her open to the advances of a particular gentleman."

"What man?" Becker snapped. "Who is he?"

"It's _you_, you great dingbat," Abby said in disgust, smacking him in the chest. "Jesus, talk about the blind leading the visually challenged! Jess is madly in love with you, but won't ask you out because she thinks you'll turn her down. You, meanwhile, stalk all her dates to make sure that she isn't looked at in a funny way yet you won't admit you're doing it because you fancy her rotten!"

She shot a look of exasperation at Emily. "And I thought Connor and I did everything arse-backwards."

"Wait," said Becker, still processing everything that Abby had just said. "Jess…likes me?"

"Thank God you're pretty," Abby sighed. "Because you've not got many brain cells to spare, have you? Yes, Jess likes you. Jess adores you. But Jess also thinks that she doesn't register on your radar, so she's been looking for someone on the internet to replace you. And actually Becker, if Emily and I hadn't been sticking our noses in, she would have found someone. We've only given her a fraction of the responses she actually had."

"If you believe you have any romantic feelings for Jess, now would be a good time to express them," Emily added, a little more gently.

"She…wants to go out with me?" Becker said carefully, wrapping his brain around the concept.

"By Jove, I think he's got it," Abby said, smiling. "Go on, lover boy. Work your magic."

"I…don't know where she is," Becker said, looking around wildly.

"You're head of security," Abby said, giving up on the whole business. "Work it out."

He got there in the end.

He hurried back to his office and watched the security feed from the moment that Jess left the ADD in tears. He tracked her via cameras until she entered a small storage cupboard on the very ground level of the ARC. It held spare miscellaneous office and computer consumables, according to the building registry, which meant that Jess was currently crying her heart out in the ARC's stationery cupboard among the paperclips and reams of A4 paper.

When Becker got there he used his access codes to limit the lift to the floor above it. That way there shouldn't be any disturbances from anybody desperate for a new pen.

He knocked gingerly on the door.

"Jess? Are you in there?" he called.

There was a moment of silence, and then she responded.

"Depends," she sniffed. "Is there an anomaly? Do they need me upstairs?"

"No," he said, fighting a smile.

"Then no, I'm not in here. Go away."

Becker ignored her and opened the door. Jess was sitting in the corner of the cupboard, wedged in between some packing cartons, puffy-eyed and miserable.

"I thought I told you to go away," she said, wiping her eyes.

Becker fished about in his pocket.

"I couldn't give you this from out here," he said, passing her a handkerchief.

Jess abandoned the remnants of tissue she had been using and accepted the handkerchief.

"Thanks," she said dully. "I don't suppose there's any chance you'll leave now?"

"Nope," he said cheerfully, sitting down next to her.

"I didn't think so," she said glumly.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Emily and Abby tell me you've tried internet dating recently," he said eventually. "Not gone well?"

Jess made a disparaging noise.

"Not gone well? Becker, it's been a bloody disaster. None of the six men I've gone out with…"

"Seven," Becker corrected her.

At Jess' confused look, he said hurriedly "So Abby and Emily tell me."

"Right," Jess said, looking at him oddly. "Well, none of the _seven_ men I've gone out with have been right."

She sighed.

"It's not like I was looking for a husband, you know? I just needed a date for my sister's wedding, and it was sort of last-minute notice on her part, so I tried finding someone online. And it didn't work."

She dabbed at her face again, removing the last traces of her eye make-up.

"So, now I'm going to go back upstairs and send my sister a very polite email telling her that I won't be bringing anyone with me to the wedding, and if that throws off her head count or guest symmetry or fung shui or whatever force that's driving the wedding this week, I don't bloody well care."

"Will she mind?" Becker asked, trying not to smile.

"Oh, she'll hate me for the rest of her natural life for ruining her wedding," Jess said frankly. "But as she's never liked me very much anyway, I don't think it'll make too much of a difference."

"Well, we can't have your sister's wedding ruined now, can we?" Becker said reasonably. "Why don't I go with you, instead?"

Jess stared at him with large, tear-filled eyes and he just wanted to reach out pull her into his lap and hold her until she stopped crying. And then, he realised joyfully, he wanted to kiss her until she lost her lipstick along with her eyeshadow.

"I can't ask you to do that," Jess stammered. "Everyone will think we're going out with each other. My mother…God, my mother would give you the third degree."

"I can handle your mother, Jess," he said smiling. "She can't be any worse than the guys that trained us in the army."

"I don't know," Jess said doubtfully. "My brothers are both in the services, and they're terrified of her."

"Army?" Becker asked.

"No," Jess said, shaking her head. "Richard's in the Navy, and Christopher trains pilots for the Air Force."

"So it'll be alright to wear my uniform at the wedding then?" Becker asked, taking Jess' hand and squeezing it. "They'll be wearing theirs?"

"Yes…Anna wanted uniforms in the pictures," Jess said, a bit lost at the turn in conversation. "After the royal wedding, she got a bit of a thing about it. But Becker, if you go with me to the wedding, people will assume we're a couple."

She looked at him again, and the sadness in her face broke his heart. Without stopping to think about what he was doing, he leant forward and kissed her gently. It was a bit cramped and awkward, and definitely very chaste, but it was honestly the most important kiss he'd ever given in his life.

"So, let's be a couple," he said quietly. "Jess, I've been an idiot. I've liked you for ages, but I never quite realised just how much I liked you until I found out there was a chance that I could lose you to somebody else. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get here, but would you go out with me please? Tonight? Somewhere?"

Jess touched her lips with the fingertips of one hand before smiling at him.

"Oh yes please," she said quietly. "I'd like that a lot."

There was another kiss, then another, before Becker got tired of the way that his neck was cramping up and pulled her into his lap. They only spent another ten minutes in the room together, but it felt like both forever and no time at all.

"As much as I would like to spend all day with you in the stationery cupboard," he said, kissing her just below the ear, "I think someone's going to notice that we're gone soon."

"I know," she said, slightly breathlessly. "We should really go."

Twenty minutes later, they finally made it into the lift.

Jess didn't send that email to her sister on Monday. For the rest of the working day she was sure that she had imagined the whole thing, that she hadn't really sat in the stationery cupboard and snogged Becker despite being snotty and tearful and looking like a panda. But then as soon as she logged off from the ADD at the end of the day he was there, telling her he'd booked a table at a lovely Chinese restaurant, and that he'd pick her up from her flat at half past seven.

On the Tuesday, they went to the cinema to see a ridiculous action film. He'd enjoyed the car chases and gun battles; she loved it when he casually draped an arm across her shoulders and kept it there.

On Wednesday she sent the email to her sister informing her that Captain Becker would be her guest as the wedding, and did she want him to wear his uniform? The reply was brief; Jess' guest could wear whatever he damn well wanted, as long as he came.

Wednesday night he invited her to his flat for dinner, but they were so busy kissing on the sofa that the pasta boiled over and the sauce burned, so they ordered pizza instead and watched Mock the Week. Jess drove home happy and still tingling where he'd let himself touch her – exposed skin only, wrists, the length of her neck, her hair.

On Thursday morning she shaved her legs and paid special attention to the rest of her body, too; he might be prepared to go slowly, but she wouldn't mind quickening the pace a little. Unfortunately, her plans for a romantic evening at her place were ruined by a herd of stubborn stegosaurus that arrived through an anomaly in Essex. By the time the team got back, it was far too late for them to do anything but sleep.

Friday night was Anna's hen night, so Jess wouldn't see him until the following day. Feeling brave, Jess had booked a hotel room at the small, pretty hotel next to the abbey where Anna and Jasper would have their reception and spend the night before jetting off on their honeymoon. She had been planning on sleeping at her parents' house and driving back to London on Sunday but she was pretty sure that she could convince Becker to stay the night with her at the hotel.

The hen night was as dire as Jess thought it would be. It had been planned by Lolly and Tipsy, both of whom were in very bad moods with each other for the whole night. It seemed that they could barely talk to each other without snapping, and if looks could kill then Jess would have been the only bridesmaid over the age of six attending the wedding. Anna spent the entire evening getting as drunk as she possibly could. However, as she had dropped so much weight and hadn't touched their meal early in the evening the alcohol hit her like a punch to the face. When they started their tour of the nightclubs she spent most of her evening propped up in a booth, nose-deep in her glass of vodka tonic.

Jess was worried about her, but when she tried to ask her if anything was the matter Anna just snapped that she was fine, and to worry about getting her own life sorted out before interfering in other people's. Stung by the level of Anna's bitterness, Jess retreated. There was more to this than pre-wedding jitters, she knew, but she and Anna had never been close. Perhaps Anna would tell Tipsy or Lolly what the problem was, if she could find a moment when they weren't at each other's throats.

Jess made an executive decision and poured her sister into a cab at just past midnight. Anna didn't seem to notice that Jess was the one making all the decisions about the evening; she just sat in the car and looked out of the window as they drove through busy London streets.

"I can manage," she spat at Jess as she struggled to get out of the taxi. "See you tomorrow."

"Call me if you don't feel like driving," Jess said. "I can take you down."

"I won't need you," Anna said, and walked in an almost straight line up to the door of her flat and disappeared inside.

"Charming," the taxi driver opined.

"For her, that's practically affectionate," Jess sighed, and gave him her home address.

She wished she could have spent the evening with Becker, but she'd have to wait. When she got into her flat, the spotlights over the kitchen island were on. That alarmed her slightly - she knew they had been switched off when she left earlier that evening. However, on closer inspection she found that a large bouquet of pink roses was sitting on the island, along with a little note wishing her the best of luck with the service and promising to see her tomorrow.

She didn't know how he had got into her flat – she certainly hadn't given him a key. But his sudden impersonation of the Milk Tray man gave her a thrill. She spent half an hour fussing with a vase before she had the flowers arranged just right, and she carried them into her room so she could keep them on her bedside table.

In a week she'd gone from single and despondent to being swept away by a whirlwind romance and she loved every second of it. It didn't even matter that she had to wear a badly-designed dress in a stupidly large wedding for the sister that hated her. Because she only had to do that for one day, and if she was very lucky, she'd have Becker for a lot longer than that.


	3. Chapter 3

Early Saturday morning Jess went through her final checklist to make sure she had everything, loaded up her Mini and began the drive down to the countryside. She'd sent Anna a text message, and received a curt one back once again saying that she didn't need a lift. Jess took the opportunity to blast her compilation album of cheesy 90s pop as she roared down the motorway, singing along tunelessly.

The abbey that Anna had found for the wedding wasn't really an abbey in the same way that Westminster or York were abbeys. This was more like a very large church. It had started out life as one, but the builders had run out of money, settling for the name of abbey only. Still, it was beautiful and big enough to hold the two hundred and fifty people that Anna had insisted had to attend. As well as family, there were friends from both work and university as well as business contacts that both Jasper and Anna were keen to impress.

The hotel was next to the abbey grounds, and Jess recognised her mother's car as well as some other family ones scattered throughout the car park. Her sister-in-law Maggie, the only one with a sensibly-named child, was out side the hotel sneaking a quiet cigarette.

"Hi Jess," she said, stubbing it out on the floor. "Welcome to the madhouse."

"Hi Maggie," Jess replied, balancing her garment bag and her small suitcase. "How's Christopher?"

"At home in bed with a bloody hangover," she said frankly. "He was out with Jasper and the rest of them until half past two in the morning, so I had to be the one to get Izzie up and over here to put her dress on."

"Is she excited?" Jess asked. Maggie snorted.

"She's five years old, and has been told she gets to wear a pretty dress and throw rose petals over the floor. She's been practicing for days with anything she can get her hands on. I could kill the little swine. Bloody cornflakes all over the kitchen floor!"

Jess couldn't help but smile at the thought of her favourite niece 'practicing' so diligently.

"Your mother's up there now with the three of them. Andrea's trying to help, but she's about as much use as a chocolate teapot, so everyone's just hyped up and over excited."

The thought of her other sister in law made Jess blanch. Richard's wife was not her favourite person in the world, not least because she'd named her daughters Bliss and Unique. Bliss, of course, was the world's most unpleasant pre-teen and famous for her legendary temper tantrums. The natural laws of irony dictated that Unique shared her name with two other classmates in her school, a fact that made Andrea red with anger whenever the subject was brought up.

Both girls were miniature versions of their over-demanding, hyper-sensitive mother. Jess quite understood why Richard spent so much time at sea.

"I brought a Wii, four controllers and a couple of games. It's in the boot of my car," Jess said, motioning to the Mini. "Just in case."

"You are an angel sent from heaven," Maggie told her. "It's either that or knock-out gas."

When they got to the large room that was being used as a changing area, it was clear that the Wii was definitely a good idea. Jess' mother was looking frazzled around the edges and the three young bridesmaids were running riot. It was a matter of minutes to get the Wii hooked up to the flatscreen television, and pretty soon they were all busy in a cut-throat game of Just Dance, one of several games left behind in a drawer by Connor. According to the high score list, he was a master of "Can't Get You Out Of My Head", but had real problems with "Groove Is In The Heart", which Izzie was currently demolishing.

One look at her mother's face prompted Jess to break open the mini-bar and make her a stiff Screwdriver. Her mother accepted it without comment, knocked it back, and poured herself another.

"Anna was in a hell of a mood last night," Jess told Maggie as she began to change out of her jeans and t-shirt. "I really don't think that she should be marrying that wanker Jasper."

"Banker, dear," her mother said vaguely, topping up her glass.

"Could go either way," Jess muttered. "And something's up with Tipsy and Lolly, too."

"Such pretty names," Andrea said, touching up her lipstick in the mirror.

Jess ignored her, as did everybody else.

"Oh no," Maggie said, looking at Jess critically once her dress was on. "What was Anna thinking?"

"I know," Jess said mournfully, looking down at herself. "But this was the only pattern that we all could wear."

"Bloody ridiculous," Maggie muttered, rooting around in her large handbag and producing a small sewing kit. "Trying to make three grown women look identical. Come on, let's see what we can do to make you presentable."

Anna, Tipsy and Lolly arrived then, and the focus of the room immediately switched to them. Jess and Maggie were able to sidle outside into the corridor, where Maggie worked her magic with her needle and thread.

"It's not much," she said, motioning for Jess to turn around. "I can't really alter the lines of the dress. But I can make you look as though you've got a waist, at least. A bust, too."

There was a mirror on the wall halfway down the corridor, and Jess nervously peered into it. Maggie was right – it was still the same dress. But now it went in where Jess did and out where she curved, and the colour really did wonders for her skin.

"Thanks, Maggie," Jess said, giving her a hug. "You're my favourite in-law."

"I'd be flattered, but I've met Andrea and Jasper," Meggie said, laughing.

"Jess!" There was an impatient screech from the dressing room. "Come and get your hair done _immediately_!"

"Ah, the blushing bride," Maggie said, letting her go. "Go on."

Inside the dressing room the hair stylists had arrived. All the adult bridesmaids and the bride sat in a row as their hair was pulled, plaited and primped into place. Tipsy was sniffing and wiping her eyes the entire time, and Lolly stared at the mirror ahead of her in cold fury. Anna only spoke to snap at Tipsy for crying and didn't smile once during the whole pampering process.

Something was very, very wrong. Just as the bridal party was about to leave for the short walk to the abbey, Jess took her sister to one side.

"Look Anna, I know we don't always get on with each other," she began, "But it's really clear that you're not happy."

"I'll be fine once we're married," Anna said, carefully checking her appearance in the mirror. She frowned and minutely adjusted the clips in her hair that held her veil in place.

"Are you sure?" Jess asked, refusing to be brushed off. "Because if you're having second thoughts, it's not too late to back out, Anna. Seriously. My car's outside, I'll take you anywhere you want to go."

Anna didn't reply immediately. She finished checking her immaculate appearance in the mirror, then adjusted the trailing spray of flowers in her bouquet.

"It'll all be okay when we're married," she said at last. "Thanks, Jess. But I have two hundred and fifty guests sitting in the abbey, the band has set up in the reception hall and the wedding is supposed to start in ten minutes."

"If you're sure," Jess said doubtfully.

"Positive," Anna said firmly. "Let's go."

The walk to the abbey was short, and the children provided enough noise to make up for the fact that the bride had all the warmth of a permafrost and two of the adult bridesmaids were staring daggers at each other.

Jess' father was waiting at the entrance to the abbey, with the vicar who soon disappeared inside. Jess' mother twitched Anna's dress a few times to make sure it sat perfectly on her rail-thin frame, then disappeared into the abbey to find her seat. The younger bridesmaids were alternately told they were perfection incarnate (Bliss and Unique) or that Father Christmas would burn their toys if they misbehaved during the service (Izzie). Then Andrea and Maggie slipped into the abbey and a minute later the bridal march started on the huge organ high up in the gallery.

Jess couldn't hear what her father said to Anna, but she shook her head decisively and took his arm. Clearly he too had picked up on her sister's lack of joy on the day that was supposed to be the happiest of her life.

Jess found her place in the procession and they moved off, little Izzie scattering rose petals with vigour. They ended up all over the aisle, those guests situated on the end of the pews and her own head. When she reached the altar at the end of the aisle, she tipped her basket upside down and shook it for good measure, smacking the bottom of it decisively. Jess' lips twitched. At least nobody could accuse her of not taking her job seriously.

She scanned the pews as best she could, looking for Becker without turning her face away from the back of Anna's head. He'd mentioned something about his uniform, so she was looking for somebody dressed in black, but when she spotted him her heart did a little lurch. She'd sort of forgotten that he was, nominally at least, still in the army; he didn't wear the standard army uniform, but the ARC-specified all black. So, she had expected to see him here in a posher version of his ARC uniform. But he was in his blues instead, the formal uniform worn by an officer when at an event like this. He wasn't wearing a hat, of course, not inside the abbey; but he more than made up for it in a smartly tailored navy jacket, navy trousers and black shoes that shined so brightly that she could swear that she'd see her own reflection in them. There was a blue stripe running down the leg of his trousers, a blue insignia on his arm and several medal ribbons on his chest. He was gorgeous, and smiling, and had eyes only for her.

Breaking protocol, she turned her head and smiled back, before turning back to Anna's veil again. He was by far the most handsome man there, she thought smugly. Even her brothers, resplendent in their uniforms, couldn't match him.

They came to a halt at the altar, and Jess came forward to collect Anna's bouquet, wading through a small pile of rose petals as she did so. They all sang 'Jerusalem', then sat down to listen to a sermon from the vicar on the importance of trust and honesty. Jess watched with narrowed eyes as Jasper shifted nervously from foot to foot and patted his brow with a handkerchief.

As the vicar hammered home his message of the importance of communication Jess heard Tipsy, sitting next to her, start to sniffle again. Jess peered into the row behind her and made an impassioned plea with her eyebrows at Maggie, who seemed to understand. She passed forward a small package of tissues, and Jess slid them to Tipsy.

"Thanks," the girl whispered, dabbing at her eyes.

"What's the matter?" Jess whispered back, aware that her mother was watching her with a beady glare from the pew behind her.

"N..nothing," Tipsy replied, clearly lying.

Jess sent a personal prayer to the heavens to let time move forward as quickly as possible, so she could skip this wedding part and get right to dancing at the reception with Becker.

The traditional part of the service finally got under way, with Anna being officially given away and the vicar reminding the couple of the seriousness of the vows they were about to take. By this point Jasper looked slightly green, and was sweating visibly. Anna's face was calm and blank, and the whole thing just felt very wrong indeed.

The vicar got to the point in the service where she had to ask if anyone knew if there were any lawful impediments as to why Anna and Jasper couldn't be married. Jess held her breath, as she always did at this point in any wedding she attended. Nobody ever objected, though; that sort of stuff only happened on TV or in films.

Just as Jess the thought crossed her mind, she saw Tipsy's pale pink dress start to rise next to her.

"Tipsy, no!" Jess hissed, trying to drag her back down into her seat, but Tipsy was not to be stopped.

Visibly shaking, Tipsy raised a hand and pointed at Jasper.

"I object to this wedding," she said in a loud, if somewhat scared voice. "Because the groom is a cheating bastard!"

There were horrified gasps all over the abbey. Maggie immediately clamped her hands over Izzie's ears. Izzie immediately tried to wriggle out of them.

"He spent Thursday night at my flat," Tipsy went on, seemingly determined to get her horrible secret off her chest. "And…and he was with Lolly on the Wednesday."

The vicar looked appalled. Jasper froze in the spotlight and looked even more like a toad than ever. Jess' dad and brothers jumped to their feet and advanced on the altar. Jasper's best man backed away, holding his hands up in the universal "nothing to do with me" gesture. All over the abbey was the buzz of horrified voices at Jasper's perfidy, at Tipsy's shocking behaviour. The only person not shocked by the news, Jess noted with detachment, was Anna.

Anna knew.

Jess was gobsmacked. Anna knew that her husband to be was a lying, cheating bastard, she knew that he had been having an affair with not one but two of her best friends, and she was still going to marry him anyway?

Her father was at Anna's side now, talking to her urgently. She was shaking her head, but beginning to look slightly doubtful.

Jess swallowed heavily. If she brought up what happened last New Year now, she'd just embarrass her sister even more. The thought of saving Jasper from a modicum of disgrace sickened her, but that was a by-product of protecting her sister. Grimly wondering if Anna would extend the same courtesy to her, Jess remained silent.

Anna cleared her throat loudly, and the abbey fell into a hushed silent, eager to hear what was about to be said.

"Is that a legal reason to stop the wedding?" she asked the vicar.

"Ah…no," the vicar replied, looking troubled. "Legally the wedding can only be stopped if there's proof of an existing marriage. But if you wish to halt the ceremony for any other reasons…"

She trailed off hopefully. Clearly this had never happened to her before.

"Is this it?" Anna asked Jasper quietly. "The trader from the Citibank desk, the woman who sources your artwork, the girlfriend of your old boss and my two oldest friends? Is that every woman you've cheated on me with, Jasper? Is there anyone else you've tried it on with?"

Jasper stuttered and grimaced and loosened his collar. His eyes flicked over to Jess. Anna's head turned sharply.

"Jess," Anna said calmly. "I know you didn't encourage him."

Anger boiled in Jess' blood.

"No I bloody well didn't!" she said, outrage screaming from every pore of her body. "He cornered me in the kitchen at last year's New Year party, grabbed me and tried to stick his hand up my skirt!"

There were more gasps at that, and Jess' brothers advanced menacingly on Jasper, who sidled closer to the vicar. The vicar gave him a disgusted look and stepped away.

"He hurt his foot that night," Anna said thoughtfully.

"That would be me, stamping on his foot with my heel," Jess told her. "I didn't say anything because…well, I wasn't sure you'd believe me. And I wasn't going to say anything now because I didn't want to embarrass you. But, he's a creep Anna, and you can do miles better than him. Don't marry him."

"He also lost five thousand pounds from his savings account," Anna said, a very faint hint of a smile on her face.

"That would be me, too," Jess said, shrugging her shoulders. In for a penny, in for a pound, as her father liked to say. "I donated it in his name to a shelter for abused women."

There was a ripple of laughter at that. Jasper glared at her furiously, but Jess met his eyes and glared back. She knew who was on the side of the angels here. A hand touched her shoulder; it was Becker, who had moved silently up the aisle to stand behind her. She looked at him briefly to find him smiling at her like she was the brand new EMD cannon they'd just begged the MoD for in a very long and thorough report. .

"You're brilliant," he whispered to her, and she grinned foolishly at him.

Anna turned back to Jasper.

"I could forgive the affairs," she said slowly. "Or at least, I thought I could. I'm not sure now. I thought that once you were married you'd stop. But at least all the other women _wanted_ you. Jess never wanted you. She thinks you're one step up from a slug."

"I think that's unfair to slugs," Jess said a little more loudly than she'd planned to.

Anna started to lose her composure now. She moved menacingly towards Jasper, who backed up until he hit the railing around the altar and had nowhere else to go.

"You tried to grope my _sister_," she hissed. "In my mother's _kitchen._ You _bastard_!"

And with that she let loose with a solid right cross that clipped Jasper's weak jawline and saw him spin backwards over the railing. The entire congregation gasped as he went sprawling head over heels, and then gasped again when Anna hitched up the skirt of her beautiful white dress and leaped after him, screaming imprecations in a loud, resonant voice that carried to the far rafters of the abbey.

The vicar looked on in horror. The groomsmen started forward, but seemed confused as to whom they should be helping. Lolly and Tipsy began to scream at each other about whose fault the whole situation was. Bliss and Unique, aware that no attention was on them, began to cry. Izzie jumped on a pew, and in a clear, fluting voice yelled "Kick him in his wotsits, Auntie Anna!"

As the only rational member of the bridal party other than Izzie, Jess took charge. Grabbing the sleeves of her brothers, she towed them over to where Becker was standing, taking in the disastrous wedding with a studied blank face.

"Richard, Christopher, this is my boyfriend, Captain Hilary Becker of the Special Air Services. Becker, these are my brothers, Wing Commander Christopher Parker of the RAF and Commander Richard Parker of the Royal Navy. For the love of God, get everyone out of the abbey, will you? Granny looks like she's about to have a heart attack."

Leaving the three representatives of Her Majesty's Armed Forces, now acquainted with each other, to shepherd the two hundred and fifty guests out of the abbey, Jess turned her attention to her immediate family.

"Izzie, get down off that pew at once or Father Christmas will give all your toys to the elves to burn," she threatened.

Izzie hopped down, obediently.

"You two, stop snivelling this instant," she barked at Bliss and Unique. "Or _I_ will burn your Christmas presents."

This dire threat from a usually cheerful and kind aunt stunned both Bliss and Unique into silence.

"There's lots of pop and a ton of food back in the hotel where we got changed," Jess went on. "Find your mothers and take them back there and make them give you some, then you can play on the Wii again. I'll give five pounds to whoever can beat Connor's highest score."

The three girls immediately towed their mothers towards the doors, each determined to win the prize.

By now, Jess' father had pulled Anna off Jasper. He held her protectively as she wept into his shoulder. Jasper's parents were standing, stone-faced, at the front of the abbey. His father was helping Jasper to get up off the floor.

"Your daughter is unhinged!" the mother of the groom hissed at the mother of the bride.

"Your son is a monster!" the mother of the bride shot back, the Screwdrivers having worked something loose.

"Will the both of you shut up?" Jess shouted.

Jess' mother's jaw snapped shut with shock. Jasper's mother blinked.

"You're both right," Jess went on. "But right now there are more pressing matters to take care of. Go back to the hotel and tell the manager that the reception is cancelled. Send the band home and get the caterers to pack the food back up. Get the manager to find the nearest Salvation Army centre that can pick the food up and donate it to them. They can hand it out."

"What if there isn't one?" the groom's mother asked, clearly subdued in the onslaught of Jess' relentless organisation.

"Old people's homes, Derby and Joan clubs, Meals on Wheels, give it to the birds to eat for all I care," Jess snapped. "Just do it!"

The two women nodded and scurried off.

Taking a calming breath, Jess walked over to Tipsy and Lolly, who were still in the middle of a giant "I shagged him first!" competition. She waited for them to pause and acknowledge her presence, but they ignored her, lost in their own egos.

Incensed, Jess grabbed one of the massive vases of flowers that the florist had dotted tastefully around the abbey. She yanked the blooms out, then hurled the water in the vase over the squabbling pair. The water flew in a high arc, catching the light from the beautiful stained glass in the windows before landing on the heads of Lolly and Tipsy.

They shrieked, but stopped fighting.

"You have exactly ten minutes to get your things from the hotel, get in your cars, and go away," Jess said in as menacing a voice she could muster. "Because if you're not gone in ten minutes I'll use my connections at the Home Office to put you on a list of people that are considered dangerous by the Royal Protection team. No night club in London will admit you in case it means that Harry won't go there. Do you understand me?"

Frightened by the thought of never being papped again by press who thought they were members of a flagging girl band, Lolly and Tipsy raced from the abbey.

"Can you do that?"

A quiet voice made Jess turn around. Her father was standing there, holding a sobbing Anna.

"Can you really do that, Jess, in that secret job of yours?" her father asked, looking at her clearly for the first time in a decade.

"I may not be able to do that myself," Jess allowed. "But I know a man who can."

James Lester, in Jess' mind, could do anything. And, for Jess, he probably would.

Her father nodded, and patted her on the arm.

"Good show today, Jess," he said. "Proud of you."

Jess glowed at his praise.

He walked them both back up the aisle, an arm around the shoulder of both his daughters.

"So," he said, as they walked out of the huge abbey doors and into the sunlight. "This army chap of yours. Is his name really Hilary?"

"Yes, Dad," Jess sighed as her sister made a noise that sounded like it could be the laugh of a woman who was still crying pretty heavily. "But he's a member of the SAS, so I wouldn't go on about it too much."

"RAF, Navy, Army," her father mused. "We'll be tripping over the medals at Christmas time, won't we?"

"Shut up Dad," Jess said, delighted to be teased by her father. "We've only been going out for a week."

"Well, if this doesn't scare him off," her father said philosophically, "nothing will."

Jess couldn't help but agree with him.

They ended up in the large ballroom of the hotel that had been intended for the reception. At the far end of the room, the band was packing up their instruments. Caterers were busy piling food carefully into delivery boxes, and there was already a van waiting at the side of the hotel ready to deliver it to a homeless shelter some miles away. Hotel staff was already clearing tables of place settings and decorations.

Most of the Parker family were sitting in small groups at some of the tables. There were many open bottles of wine.

At one table, separate from the rest, Anna and Jess sat together. Jess had begged ice from the bar staff and was currently overseeing the icing of her sister's slightly swollen hand. Anna was making inroads into a large bottle of champagne.

"Can you wiggle your fingers?" Jess asked. "Does it hurt?"

Anna wiggled her fingers.

"I don't think I broke any bones," she said, her voice slightly slurred. "Not any of my bones, anyway."

"You didn't have to punch him for me," Jess told her, holding the ice in place. "But thank you."

"Yes, I did," Anna argued, waving her glass in the air and spilling champagne onto the tablecloth. "Whoops. I've been a crap sister to you. And a real bitch ever since I got engaged. You should be punching me."

"I never wanted to punch you," Jess lied, edging the champagne bottle away from Anna.

"I was a _bitch_," Anna repeated. "You said so yourself. At _tea_."

She sounded so awed at the fact that Jess had chosen Sunday afternoon tea to swear at her that Jess couldn't help but laugh. Soon after, Anna started to laugh too.

"I knew, Jess," she said once she had stopped laughing. She sounded sad now. She drained her glass, and looked around for the champagne bottle. Spotting it, she grabbed it with her free hand and swigged straight from it.

"I knew," she repeated. "I always knew when he started up with another woman. I got to recognise the signs. I told myself that it was just cold feet on his part, that he'd change and settle down once we got married. But I didn't really believe it. Not really. I was just scared to start all over again. It's scary, being single."

She swigged from the bottle again.

"And there you were, every Sunday. Always so together, your life always so neat. Secret hush-hush job, like Dad. Always looking immaculate, like Mum. Always so perfect, you made me feel awful. You wouldn't let your fiancé cheat on you, would you Jess?"

Jess understood that this was a rhetorical question, and kept her mouth shut.

"So I was a bitch to you, because I couldn't tell anyone how bloody miserable I was," Anna finished. "Sorry, Jess."

"I spend ages getting dressed for Sunday tea because you always look so fashionable," Jess blurted out. She eyed the champagne bottle. She was nowhere near drunk enough for this conversation, but she didn't think that Anna was going to let her grip on it go any time soon.

"You and Mum always have a lot to talk about," Jess went on, prying loose her insecurities and giving them a good shake. "I always feel…on the outside. The mistake," she finished, Anna's old childhood nickname for her feeling bitter on her tongue.

"I was such a cow," Anna marvelled.

"You were," Jess agreed, and they both laughed. "But let's face it, three kids, then a seven year gap, then another? Somebody forgot something, and here I am."

"I still shouldn't have said it," Anna said stubbornly. "I'm sorry. And you've been so brilliant today…"

She started sniffing again, and used the tablecloth to dab at her eyes.

"Hey, none of that," Jess said quickly. "You were pretty cool too, you know. I never knew you could punch like that. He dropped like a sack of potatoes."

"He did, didn't he?" Anna said, sounding a little more cheerful. "The little shit."

Her eyes tracked the progress of Becker around the room. He was putting together a plateful of food for their grandmother, and pouring drinks for the great-aunts.

"I bet your man could take a punch," Anna said thoughtfully.

"He's pretty tough," Jess said modestly.

"He's pretty _pretty_," Anna said, laughing at her own wit. "Where did you find him? Does he have a brother?"

"Hands off," warned Jess. Then a thought struck her, and she laughed.

"You know what?" she asked Anna. "If you hadn't been such a bitch and demanded I find a date for the wedding, then I would never have started seeing him. I would have just kept pining and being miserable. I've had the best week of my life, up to today, and really, it's all because of you."

Anna started to cry again, but she managed to squeak "Happy tears!" as she buried her face in the tablecloth.

Jess pulled her into a one-armed hug and the two sisters sat together, temporarily at truce for the first time in a very long time.

They sat together for a long time before a delicious smell caught in their nostrils.

"Is that…?" Jess asked, sniffing the air.

"Oh God, are those chips?" Anna asked, disbelievingly.

Becker appeared silently at their side, carrying a large plate of hot, thick, golden chunks of deep-fried potato in one hand and a bottle of malt vinegar in the other.

"The kids had chips with their meals," Becker said, appropriating cutlery from a passing waitress. "I asked them to make a few more. It seemed like a good time for you to eat."

"I haven't had any potatoes for months," Anna said, her attention focused completely on the forbidden food in front of her. "Or anything fried."

"No time like the present," Jess said helpfully. "Go on Anna, you look like a walking skeleton."

"Bitch," Anna said fondly, before spearing one chip and nibbling on it carefully. One became two, two became four, and before long she was tucking in happily.

"Go away," she said to Jess. "These are my carbohydrates. Find your own."

Jess kissed her cheek and did just that, walking with Becker over to the table where her father and mother were sitting.  
>"We've called taxis for most of our lot, and Richard and Christopher are taking the rest home," her father said, clicking his mobile phone shut.<p>

"I drove down," Becker said. "I could help, if you like."

"You've done enough to help, Captain Becker, we couldn't ask any more of you today. You haven't exactly seen us at our best."

Her father shrugged his shoulders wryly. Becker smiled.

"I've certainly seen a lot worse punches than your daughter's right."

"It was a good shot, wasn't it," Mr Parker said proudly. "Comes with growing up with two older brothers, I expect. Jess, I know you were expecting to come back with us, but we thought it'd be best if we took Anna."

"Don't worry, Dad," Jess said. "I've made other arrangements."

"Good girl," her father said, standing up. "I think the manager's telling us that our taxis are here."

He was right, and they spent the next ten minutes sorting relatives into cars. Jess and Becker stood in the doorway to the hotel and watched the last of them leave, carrying the victorious Izzie, her prized five pound note clutched firmly in her inexplicably sticky hand. Maggie waved at them, and Jess waved back.

"So," she said, turning to him. "Have my insane family scared you off?"

His response was to kiss her deeply and passionately, in front of anybody who happened to be in the lobby of the hotel.

"Jessica," he said, his voice slightly deeper than usual. "In my day job, I routinely face terrifying creatures that have been extinct for many millions of years. Most of them want to eat me. There is nothing your family can do that will scare me away."

"Oh good," she sighed, resting her head against his shoulder.

"Besides," he added, humour dancing through his voice. "You haven't met mine yet."

They stayed there, leaning against the doorframe for a while before Becker eventually straightened up.

"Jess," he said. "Don't get the wrong impression, but would it be alright if I booked us a room? I don't expect anything to happen," he said hurriedly, "it's just that I think you and I could both do with some very large drinks, you especially, and neither of us should drive after that."  
>"Becker," Jess replied. "Don't get the wrong impression, but I already have a room for us. I don't expect anything to happen," she mimicked, "but if it doesn't, then it's a real waste of the naughty undies I packed to bring with me."<p>

He seemed to be temporarily lost for words, and followed obediently as she tugged him in the direction of the stairs, her room, and their bed.

On Monday morning Robert Parker swiped his pass card into the reader, submitted to the three-dimensional thermal scanning machine and used his retinal scan to open the door to his office. He had been seated at his desk and scanning through reports of that weekend's unusual activity when the Minister popped his head around the door.

"Ah, Robert," he said jovially. "Good weekend? The wedding went well?"

"Perfectly," Parker replied. "She finally came to her senses and left the little scrote, after punching him over the altar rail in front of two hundred and fifty of her nearest and dearest. I've never been more proud of her. How can I help you, Minister?"

"It's to do with your other daughter, actually," the Minister replied. He pulled a piece of paper out of his briefcase. "The ARC has put in a requisition order for an EMD cannon from Defense. They've kicked it over to us. What do you think we should do?"

Parker read the requisition form and noted Becker's well formulated and neatly-written plea for more firepower above his signature at the bottom of the page.

"I say give them two, Minister," he said eventually. "They go up against dinosaurs five days out of seven so we don't have to. We should think about giving them that tank they asked for last year, too. Give them something to put the cannon on."

The Minister hemmed and hawed for a while, but Parker stood firm in the face of indecision. Minsters came and went with every new sex scandal and election, but the civil service remained constant, guiding and advising them to do exactly what the civil service wanted done. And Parker's branch of the civil service was even more secretive and important than the rest.

By the end of the impromptu meeting, Parker had ensured that his daughter's new boyfriend had his tank and cannons. He thought about the look on Jess' face when she found out that her dippy old dad was actually responsible for the formation of the ARC to begin with, and smiled. He had been the one who had submitted her name for consideration for the job as field operations manager. He read all her performance evaluations and reports detailing how she was slowly re-inventing procedure and protocol. He'd never been more proud of his youngest child. He just wished he could tell her.

But only fourteen more months until retirement. He could keep the secret until then.

If there was one thing that Parkers were good at, it was keeping secrets.


End file.
